I think that thrift stores are going to stop carrying a lot of children's products because of this. They are not required to test but could face civil or criminal liabilities if they sell something that they might not have known was a problem.

I will say that I've always found it crazy that thrift stores here in the South sell used car seats often missing parts, expired and otherwise unsafe. Hopefully this will at least stop that practice. In other parts of the country that I've lived they do not take on that liability.

They are not required to test but could face civil or criminal liabilities if they sell something that they might not have known was a problem

They're probably only required to not sell recalled items. All they'd have to do is keep up with the government's recall list which they might already do anyway, to a point. This scare will probably make them be even more diligent.

That sounds logical, Kim, but its not what the CPSC "clarification" says. Its says, "...resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content..." That just turns it into a guessing game, even if it is an educated guess, and I'll bet that the resellers will just stop selling many things rather than take the risk of their guess being wrong.

Love the pirate pictures!! My boys are so into that! I just found a pirate advent calendar (who knew there was such a thing) on clearance at Target yesterday. It was still $11, but it will be the main and only toy gift for one of our boys next year.

That sounds logical, Kim, but its not what the CPSC "clarification" says. Its says, "...resellers cannot sell children’s products that exceed the lead limit and therefore should avoid products that are likely to have lead content..." That just turns it into a guessing game, even if it is an educated guess, and I'll bet that the resellers will just stop selling many things rather than take the risk of their guess being wrong.

Hi Indie,

Well, I'd hope that all they'd be legally bound to do is to abide by the recall list. How else would they know? At least for now. How can they be held liable for products sold where the lead content hasn't been discovered yet? Once the lead testing begins the list of things they can't sell will grow. Then at that point they might want to get out of the toy selling business. :-/

Whew! At least they saw how unreasonable that part was. Now hopefully they can keep from bankrupting the "little guys" that sell new!

I'm wondering ... For about a year now, my Goodwill has had a binder 3" thick of product recalls (right by the cash registers). You were supposed to check it if you thought a toy they were selling might have been recalled (and they would discard the toy). That seems to be a pretty common sense approach, but I doubt it would fly with the government's demands if they would happen to mistakenly sell a recalled toy ...

I'm just hoping thrift stores don't get scared into closing their doors or limiting the sale of children's merchandise.

The CPSC has to enforce the law as written. The CPSIA law is clear that sale of children's items containing lead over the limit is prohibited. Congress, not the CPSC, is to blame for the wording of the law.

So write to your senators and representatives in Congress and tell them to fix it!

Libraries are getting worried. Here is an article from the American Library Association.

http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=1322 In the article you can also click the link that takes you to their letter to congress.

IT seems to me that the CPSC issued a statement on Jan 8th that some tout as a “victory” for consignment and thrift stores. TO me this is absolutely not the case and pure twisting. What they did was issued a statement simply CLARIFYING what they already previously stated. Many stores have stated they will be dumping their children’s products as opposed to taking on the liability of accidentally selling an unsafe product and risk jail and fines. The stores are responsible still to have their articles tested. Because if they sell an item with lead or psc they will still be held liable. It reads the same way as previously. THey will still be responsible for items that come in to their store. If they sell that item then they have no excuss about not knowing and will be liable for jail or fines.

This seemed to focus on products and toys. Did this include clothing. I'm still confused. I don't interprety governmenese very well.Are they lightening up on the clothing part. That's what I'm as concerned with as anything.I sell and buy a lot of kids clothes thru consignment stores.